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COMMENTARY / World
Nov 4, 2014

BOJ money no substitute for tapping China's market

As Prime Minister Shinzo Abe looks for new growth engines to reinvigorate Japan, he's ignoring obvious ones — like making bolder structural reforms and tapping China's market.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Nov 4, 2014

Ahead of anticipated electoral drubbing, Obama faces pressure to reboot presidency

A reshuffling of President Barack Obama's staff looks all but certain after Tuesday's congressional elections, which were likely to bring humbling losses to his Democratic party and could add to pressure on him to reboot his presidency.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Nov 4, 2014

Qatar cuts its help for Islamists carefully

Qatar has joined the American-led coalition to fight Islamic State, yet the emirate is a haven for anti-Western groups and foreign diplomats have reported seeing cars with Islamic State logos in an affluent bay district.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / IEC GENERAL MEETING IN TOKYO
Nov 4, 2014

TÜV Rheinland: Long history ensuring safety, quality for consumers

The history of TÜV Rheinland began in Germany 150 years ago when steam boilers first used to generate electricity exploded, causing many lost lives and enormous property damage. As the onset of industrialization introduced technologies that posed new potential dangers, the company's original mission...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY
Nov 3, 2014

Only catastrophe can rob China of No. 1 spot

For China not to become the world's largest economy, it would take a collapse on a bigger scale than anything we've seen in recent world history, short of Zimbabwe or North Korea.
COMMENTARY
Nov 3, 2014

Avoiding Western networks

All five BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — have vested interests in developing long-term alternative financial institutions for parking their money and moving it internationally, independent of the West's bullying instincts and addiction to sanctions.
JAPAN / Politics
Nov 3, 2014

Wounded Abe grapples with tax jinx after BOJ easing move

Back in April when Shinzo Abe raised the consumption tax, he was betting he could break a jinx that has doomed prime ministers to losing their jobs.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Nov 3, 2014

Survey shows popularity of U.K. opposition leader Miliband at record low

Opposition Labour Party leader Ed Miliband's approval rating has hit a record low, a poll showed Sunday, raising further doubts about his ability to unseat Prime Minister David Cameron in a national election in just over six months.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Nov 3, 2014

Republicans poised to ride Obama's unpopularity to gains in U.S. midterm elections

Republicans are poised to pick up seats and could win control of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday in midterm elections heavily influenced by deep voter dissatisfaction with President Barack Obama's job performance.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 2, 2014

China's rule by law, not of it

China is embarked on a major reform dedicated, leaders claim, to improving the rule of law, but subject to the will of the ruling Communist Party. This is really rule by law, not the rule of law.
COMMENTARY / World / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 1, 2014

Commemorating wartime Soviet spy Sorge

Seventy years ago on Nov. 7, the Japanese authorities executed Richard Sorge, a Soviet spy who became a member of the Nazi Party and was operating as a journalist in wartime Tokyo.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 1, 2014

Commercial rockets go boom like NASA's

There's no risk-free way to launch 5,000 pounds of food, science experiments and equipment to the International Space Station. As Orbital Sciences found out last week, some ways are far more dangerous than others.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 1, 2014

Thousands denounce HSBC board member's likening of Hong Kongers to freed slaves

Thousands have signed an online petition denouncing reported comments by an HSBC Holdings board member in which she likened Hong Kong protesters' demands for democracy to the emancipation of slaves.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 31, 2014

Japan and U.S. accused of failing Okinawa residents and veterans sickened by Agent Orange

A journalist who has documented the alleged existence of Agent Orange on Okinawa has accused Tokyo and Washington of side-stepping their responsibilities to local residents and military personnel who may have been exposed to the toxic defoliant.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Oct 30, 2014

In France, kebabs get wrapped up in identity politics

In a country whose national identity is so closely connected to its cuisine, France's hard right has seized on a growing appetite for kebabs as proof of cultural Islamization.
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 30, 2014

Okinawa gubernatorial election kicks off with four candidates

The Okinawa gubernatorial race kicks off with four candidates in an election that could sink Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's political fortunes and strain military ties with the United States.
WORLD
Oct 30, 2014

Kim Jong Un extends family penchant for purges to keep grip on power

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shares a family trait with his father and grandfather: a penchant for purges to hold onto absolute power.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 29, 2014

A hobbit won't help with your emergency oxygen

Placing a priority on entertainment in preflight safety videos may not be the best way to teach first-time fliers emergency procedures.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 28, 2014

Former senior Chinese military officer to be prosecuted for graft

One of China's most senior former military officers has confessed to taking "massive" bribes in exchange for help in promotions, state media said on Tuesday, as the government moves closer to his court martial as part of its war on graft.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Oct 28, 2014

Iraqis defy breakup of nation by sending aid to neighboring town

On one side of a bombed out street in Duloaiya, a black flag marks the territory of Islamic State. On the other, Shiite militia snipers perch on the roof of a school, their sights trained on the Sunni extremists.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Oct 27, 2014

Leftist Rousseff narrowly wins second term in Brazil presidential poll

Brazil's leftist president, Dilma Rousseff, narrowly won re-election Sunday after convincing voters that her party's strong record of reducing poverty over the last 12 years was more important than a recent economic slump.
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 26, 2014

More distrust, less harmony if law pits local patriarchs against Tokyo secrecy fetishists

With the state secrets law about to take effect, a fundamental question awaits: When is a “state” secret no longer merely national and starts to infringe upon “local” autonomy?
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 26, 2014

Double-edged media sword

What was not widely known about the late Benjamin C. Bradlee, the Washington Post editor during the Watergate Scandal of the early 1970s, was that he was quite sensitive to the risk of the news media abusing its power when it came to presidential politics.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Oct 26, 2014

Special report: why Ukraine's revolution remains unfinished

In the afternoon of Feb. 20, after the morning's dead had been cleared away, Volodymyr Melnychuk arrived outside Kiev's October palace.
COMMENTARY / Japan / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 25, 2014

Abe downsized, comfort women reprised

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe now understands why political gurus say that a week is a short time in politics.
OLYMPICS / ROBERT WHITING'S 1964 OLYMPICS RETROSPECTIVE
Oct 24, 2014

Negative impact of 1964 Olympics profound

The 1964 Tokyo Olympics had a profound impact on the capital city and the nation. In the final installment of a five-part series running this month, best-selling author Robert Whiting, who lived in Japan at the time, focuses on the environmental and human impact that resulted from hosting the event....
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 24, 2014

Give Abe a break on 'womenomics'

What matters for Japan — after two female ministers resigned this week from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet — is not the number of women in the Cabinet, but whether Japanese women get good jobs en masse.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 24, 2014

Kenny G runs afoul of Xi's artist crackdown

Chinese President Xi Jinping has launched a Maoist campaign against art and artists whom he judges as having 'negative social impact.' Saxman Kenny G, who is super popular in China, ran afoul of the authorities this week when he tweeted images of himself visiting protesters in Hong Kong.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 24, 2014

Why the world shouldn't write off Iraq's army

There is little reason to think that the Iraqi army that the U.S. trained and equipped was professionally incompetent or unable to fight Islamic State forces recently. It simply chose not to fight.

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo